This invention relates to apparatus for predicting future weather conditions in response to supplied information of current conditions.
Accurate and timely weather forecasting is of interest not only to persons whose livlihood and activities depend upon the weather such as farmers, builders, sponsors of outdoor events, etc., but also to the average person who may want to plan a recreational activity with some assurance of having the appropriate weather during the activity. Such interest is evidenced in the fact that nearly all television and radio news programs include information about current and projected weather. Such programs, however, are typically presented only periodically during the day and require access to a television set or radio in order to receive the information. Further, weather forecasts presented on radio or television may be hours old and thus inaccurate. Predicted weather information is also usually available by telephone but, again, access to the telephone is required before the information can be obtained.
For a variety of reasons, it would be desirable for persons to have instantaneous access to accurate weather forecast information without requiring the availability of a television set, radio or telephone. It would also be desirable that such weather forecast information be formulated and made available from input information consisting of readily observable current information such as wind direction and speed, season of the year, geographical location, and current status of the weather such as whether it is cloudy, partly cloudy, raining, snowing, etc. Since such parameters or at least estimates of such parameters can generally be accurately ascertained by human observation, weather forecasting using such parameters would be advantageous not only in situations where access to television, radio or telephone was not available, but also in situations where verification of publicly available forecasts was desired.